Sunblind
by Llassah
Summary: Even Harry needs to take refuge from reality once in a while. A bittersweet HD oneshot, inspired by the sonnet 'Silent Noon'


**Genre:** Slash, Romance  
**Era:** Harry and Classmates Post-Hogwarts  
**Main Character(s):** D, H, LucM, Snape  
**Ship(s):** D/H  
**Summary:** "They never talk about the War here. This space is sacred, free of all the deaths, the struggles, the guilt. Here, all they know is the smell of grass and the way the sunlight filters through the leaves...War has no place here." Even Harry needs to take refuge from reality once in a while. A bittersweet oneshot, inspired by the sonnet 'Silent Noon'  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 'Silent Noon' was written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I'm only borrowing it for a while.  
**Author's Notes:** Thank you so much to my wonderful, fantabulous beta, Valedro, for keeping me writing with some degree of coherency. This fic is dedicated to LJB, get well soon honey.

_Silent Noon (Sonnet XIX)_

_Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,-_

_The finger-points look through, like rosy blooms:_

_Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms_

_'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass._

_All round our nest far, as the eye can pass _

_Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge_

_Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge_

_'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass._

_Deep in the sunsearched groves, a dragon fly_

_Hangs, like a blue thread loosened from the sky:-_

_So this winged hour is dropt to us from above._

_Oh! Clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower_

_This close-companioned inarticulate hour_

_When twofold silence was the song of love._

_Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) _

They never talk about the War here. This space is sacred, free of all the deaths, the struggles, the guilt. Here, all they know is the smell of grass and the way the sunlight filters through the leaves. Here are the kisses, the skeetering along the edge of pleasure, the rise and the fall, and a gasped-out litany of sighs that rush along with the river. They come here, the lovers, in the summertime, with singed clothes, cuts and bruises, sometimes bandaged, weary, tear-stained. The river rushes by, the birds sing, and they are happy. War has no place here.

--

"Ah, the glory of it all- the fanfares, the blazing light, the simple victories, and the pretty, grateful girls climbing all over us. Doesn't it just make you glad to be alive and fighting?" Dean Thomas looks at Seamus Finnigan with an expression of disbelief.

"I don't see any pretty girls, mate. Just Malfoy," he replies, dodging to avoid a cuff around the head from the Malfoy in question, who is just coming down from an aerial sweep patrol.

"Any change, mate?" Seamus asks Draco, who wearily removes his gauntlets and helps himself to one of Dean's sandwiches. Draco shakes his head.

"It's as quiet as the proverbial grave out there," he replies with a look of disgust on his face. The standoff has lasted for three days, with no end in sight. "We patrol, they gloat, we get back to base. And the sodding Ministry with their thrice-damned Aurors are about as much use as a Squib in a duel! And we have to wait, and say 'yes Minister, we will try and reason with them, no Minister, we understand that the Aurors are not legally allowed to interfere', what with it not being a bloody official war! Stupid wizarding customs, can't they see we're being shot at here? Why do we have to stick by the rules?"

Dean and Seamus exchange looks. Draco Malfoy has never voiced his frustration so openly before. As one of Harry's lieutenants, he is the responsible voice of authority here, and so far, the Order has at least appeared to comply with Ministry officials. There have been arguments between Harry and Draco, but these have stayed private, with Harry largely able to curb his tirades with a look and a murmured 'later'.

"I agree."

All three turn around, to see Harry carrying his Firebolt, in full battle robes. He looks tired and unshaven, but there is a fierce light in his eyes that hasn't been seen for the past few days. Draco takes a step towards him, as if about to embrace him, then stops himself, instead offering him half of the sandwich he took off Dean. His jaw is tight, and his body is tense, as if poised to run.

"We attack?" he asks, voice shaking slightly. Harry nods.

"I persuaded the Minister," he says with a grim smile. "Get together the wings, meet here in five minutes. We take prisoners on this one. Avoid killing where possible. No, Draco." He puts up a hand to forestall his arguments. "We play nice on this one. But we don't hand the prisoners to the Ministry. I don't like the sound of this new creature they've found to guard the cells."

Dean and Seamus watch tensely as Draco's shoulders slump in defeat. His own father is under Order house arrest, having handed himself in on hearing his son's defection. Harry treats the captured with an honour the Ministry lacked in the first Rise of Voldemort. It wins him few friends. Draco spins on his heel and marches off, back held very straight. Harry watches him go, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. All three know there will be a row later. Dean and Seamus wonder why Harry doesn't seem all that worried about it.

--

"I love the way your face looks when you come," Draco whispers, supporting himself on his elbow and looking down at the closed eyes and lazy smile of his lover. "It's as if you're seeing eternity, a secret place no one else can find."

Harry laughs softly, and squints up at the sun-stabbed reddening sky. "It's my little world. You're there, and all that exists are your eyes and this darn stone digging into my back."

This time, it is Draco who laughs, a little ruefully perhaps. "You could have said," he reproaches, wondering for the hundredth time how anyone can be so unconcerned about mud and dirt, and annoying poking stones. He is too easily distracted, will never be able to focus like Harry does, to the exclusion of all else. The look of determination on his face, grasping onto the flight of pleasure reminds Draco of when he is catching the Snitch. He wonders if he will ever tell Harry this.

"You're thinking," Harry says, yawning and stretching, rubbing his back where the stone has been. Draco comes back to himself, and realises how much his elbow is aching from holding up his weight. He lies back down, and Harry pulls him so close that his head rests on Harry's chest, and he can hear his heartbeat, strong and steady, with that odd double echo that he asked Harry about once, and he said something vague about his mother, and stopped Draco's questions with a kiss that was more demanding than they usually were. He loves to hear Harry's heartbeat. His own sounds to him like a sparrow's: weak and fluttering against the cage of his ribs.

He wishes he could stay here forever, by the river, under the willow tree. But he cannot. They cannot. War and duty, and planning - all await them outside this little grove. Grand words, heavy words that try to drag Love down until Draco wonders if Harry even remembers him. Then he will see Harry looking at him such with a mixture of unguarded longing and watchful tenderness that he knows that he will never be forgotten.

Duty. It sounds dead, like dust. Draco hates duty, hates the long lessons his father used to give him, both bored by the subject, each resenting the other. He hates that he cannot avenge his mother, murdered by Voldemort for the simple sin of loving her son too much. The thought makes him angry, he tenses, clenches his jaw, and Harry seems to notice, because he rolls them over until Draco is on the floor looking up at him, and whispers his wonder at how this ever happened. As their gazes meet, anger and wonder meet, mingle, coalesce in another kiss and this time the taking is intense, aching, filled with all of the things that they have no words to say to each other here. They leave the grove hand-in hand. The dew falls, and the river flows on, a sinuous snake through the night as starlight becomes sunshine.

--

The war drags on. Voldemort stays out of sight, one step ahead of Harry. Some say he is afraid, others say he is taunting. Harry says little any more. The battles get fiercer, the casualties worse. Before, the Death Eaters seemed scared of arrest, of reprisals, of exposure. Now they are arrogant as foxes grubbing in bins. Torture is routinely used, Dark curses are flung, and the air is peppered with Unforgivables, and Harry knows that soon he will have to give his side the order to use these curses to retaliate. Harry feels old and weighed down.

"Oh dear." Draco reaches down and plucks a hair from Harry's head. Harry blinks and glares accusingly.

"What was that in aid of?" he asks in a tone of righteous indignation. Draco says nothing, but solemnly holds out a single hair. It is completely white.

"Eighteen, and my youthful bloom gone," Harry remarks wryly. "I'll never make a handsome corpse at this rate." He regrets his words as he sees Draco's silver eyes eaten up by the black or his pupils. He was expecting a punch on the arm, or a half-groan, half-laugh. Not a thinning of the lips and a widening of the eyes. Harry looks around the clearing, seeing the shadows his invitation to Death has brought in. He cannot unsay the words, just as Eve could not put the fruit back on the tree. When he tries to speak, Draco covers his lips with a savage, biting kiss, stinging as the insults they used to hurl at each other. This time, it is Draco who seems to withdraw, closing his face off to Harry's searching eyes. When he comes, he collapses down into Harry's arms, hiding his face against Harry's chest. The night breeze chills them, and they huddle together, as the creeping water laps at the cold stones. When they leave, they hold hands all the way back to the Headquarters. Harry's shirt is damp with Draco's tears. The dawn, when it comes, is wraith-grey.

--

When Draco was found by the Order, he was attempting to creep into Voldemort's fortress armed only with a wand and a kitchen knife. Half-starved, mad with grief, face filthy and blood-streaked, he had welcomed the prospect of capture, of punishment. He hadn't expected to be fed, and to have his wounds healed, or to keep his wand. He hadn't expected to fall in love.

_Draco had half-thought that the corridors of Hogwarts would have changed. They are familiar, so familiar it almost feels as if he is only sixteen, and arrogant in the innocent belief that by virtue of his pureblooded ancestry, he can never make a single mistake. He asks no questions of the wizards on either side of him, just keeps pace with them, features slipping into the mask he has long-perfected. _

_The library is no longer so familiar. There is a long table running up the centre of the room, and the bookcases have all been pushed against the walls. He is instructed to sit down and wait, which he does. Soon, there will be interrogation, and pain, and perhaps execution. He can wait for that, knowing it will come. In the meantime, he rests his head on his arms, wondering when he had last slept._

_A gentle hand on his shoulder wakes him up. He blinks sleepily, and smiles. He has just had the most wonderful dream..._

_Reality is a cold shock that tenses his body, drawing the air out of his lungs, making his vision swim._

_"Easy there, Draco," a male's voice says, calmingly. He takes deep breaths and clenches his fists to stop the shaking of his muscles. When he feels able to, he sits up and looks around to see who has woken him. Black eyes, set in a sallow face with a hooked nose and thin lips, meet his. _

_"Sorry," he mutters, pale cheeks pink with shame. He left Severus Snape tied up in a bed-and-breakfast in the Lake District, having heard the news about his mother. Now, thanks to him, Severus has been captured by Potter. Now he is awaiting death, much like Draco. "I shouldn't have left you to be captured like that." Severus actually laughs, eyes sparking with amusement._

_"Idiot boy," the man murmurs, affection in his tone. "Your knot-tying skills are nonexistent. I came here to get Potter's help in finding you before you did anything too stupid. For some strange reason, he seemed to want you found as much as I did." Severus shakes his head, and both smile at the peculiarities of Gryffindors. "He's coming to see you, as soon as he gets back from recruiting." _

_Draco nods, the thousand questions he wants to ask jumbling and tripping in his mind. "What happens now?" he asks, hating the way that his voice shakes. Severus gives this some thought. _

_"That," he answers at last, "depends on you. You are free to go and pursue revenge if you really want to be another death on the ever-lengthening list. Or, if you would rather life, you can either stay out of the war and flee to safety, or participate in combat."_

_Draco would like to scoff, to answer 'never' to survival. He could storm the castle, and dash his body against the walls just as he had planned to. He would like to make grand statements about 'death or glory' or 'no surrender'. He doesn't. He sits down, accepts a cup of tea, and wonders why he still hasn't cried for his mother. He plays chess with a man who is more his father than Lucius could ever be. Then, later, when Potter comes in, and tells him, in a voice that is softer and deeper than he remembers, that he is sorry about Narcissa Malfoy, he finds himself weeping angry tears in his old enemy's arms, and wondering why safety smells like clean washing, woodsmoke and broom polish. _

--

"I want to be buried here."

They no longer shut the world out of this haven. It is too late for that. Death, sacrifice and pain have all trampled through the sun-soaked grove, and Harry and Draco meet here in the calm before the storming of Voldemort's stronghold.

Draco turns to Harry, angry suddenly, and not sure why he is bothering to be. "Why are you telling me this? If you are dead, then I will be. By enemy hand or by my own."

Harry wants to tell him to live. He does not. If Draco died, Harry would find the world intolerable. Later, they will settle it. Later.

Now? Now is the time for hands, tongues, gasps, breathless laughter, tears. This time, Harry keeps his eyes open as he looks up into Draco's quicksilver ones. He stays in the clearing, in the world where everything seems new and strange. He knows, with a certainty seldom felt, that he is in exactly the place that he needs to be. Their tears mingle with their sweat and release. Harry wonders if the mix would taste sweet or bitter.

They dress, and leave, hand in hand. The sun glimmers on the river and the willow seems to echo with their sighs.

--

They are buried under the willow tree, the Phoenix battle standard both blanket and shroud as they sleep in each other's arms. The sky is blue, a light breeze ruffling the brightly coloured robes that Harry ordered mourners to wear in his will. A picnic has been provided on the riverbank, and together, the War orphans, young and old, play and talk and laugh together. They all comment how peaceful it is here. No one mentions the War. It doesn't seem to belong here.

Two remain by the grave. Both have skin of marble, though one has cobweb-white hair, the other crowswing black. They gaze down at the tombstone.

"It is done." the cobweb-man murmurs in an empty, scratching whisper. "My son is dead." He wonders why it took a green-eyed, half-blooded common little brat to teach him about Duty where he could not. The sun seems to shine through him, Lucius, bringer of Light, hollowed into his name by grief.

Crowswing nods, his heart clenching with an odd sympathy for the man who fell into every trap that he avoided. "Now we can be content to limp into the footnotes of the history books," he says, the corner of his thin lips quirking as he wonders how he, Severus Snape, will be remembered. "They will, of course, get most things wrong." He gestures expansively to the grove. "This will be forgotten, despite it being responsible for the winning of the War. They will forget it because war has no place here. Only peace, and solace. It doesn't fit in with their grand and glorious saga."

Lucius laughs, an odd, choking laugh. He watches as Severus digs a hand into his robes. They are black, because Harry wrote an addendum. _'As it would probably cause Severus Snape physical pain to wear any colour that isn't black, and he probably wears it to parties anyway, he is the exception. P.S. Sorry about the Boomslang and Gillyweed.'_ He draws out a tiny gold fluttering ball, and holds it cupped gently in his palm. Severus looks at Lucius as if for permission, and Lucius nods. "Let it go," he says firmly. Severus wonders if it is the Snitch or Draco's fragile memory he wants released.

They watch as the Snitch goes darting over the surface of the river, a golden dragonfly, so rare, so precious, so elusive, that Lucius feels a vague regret that he allowed it to be freed. They walk away, leaving the tree, and the river, and the glimmering on the water. They leave the lovers locked in an eternal embrace, marked by a simple stone with their names and dates, and a single line_. 'Their twofold silence is the song of love.'_


End file.
